Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4470, the Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act. This bill is a good first step to helping ensure the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) never again allows an intransigent state government endanger the public welfare.

Let there be no mistake. The blame for what happened in Flint lies directly at the feet of Governor Snyder who ignored Flint's democratic rights, his appointed Emergency Managers who wanted to save a buck, and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) that was too timid to protect the public from haphazard changes to the Flint water system.

But the EPA needs to take some blame for not dismissing out of hands the efforts of the Governor, his Emergency Managers, and MDEQ to delay addressing the crisis in Flint. The EPA let the endless echo of ``EPA overreach'' prevent them from doing their job--which is telling anti-regulatory special interests that the public's health comes first.

This bill is a start to fixing that problem, but we have a long way to go. My colleagues across the aisle need to stop fighting EPA on behalf of special interests, and start fighting alongside EPA in the public interest.

Because if they don't, there will be more Flints, there will be more mothers who can't sleep because their children are sick, and there will be more ``bi-partisan'' bills expressing hindsight support for EPA action.

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